


Red

by Lehua



Series: Miniature Disasters [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Complete, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-26 13:22:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9899027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lehua/pseuds/Lehua
Summary: John stiffened as all his muscles became aware of the woman’s proximity.  He opened his mouth to reply when he felt the atmosphere in the room change, silence descending in a wave as someone swept through the room: an astute observer would notice that as the man passed, everyone in his path seemed to sag, as if he’d taken a little bit of their energy, and then he stood at John’s shoulder, a bomb waiting to go off, lips on his temple with a soft hello.





	

Sherlock was annoyed, but John didn’t care: he’d won so Sherlock would sit here and socialize (or not, really, because this is Sherlock we’re talking about) for a little while with the Yarders after a case well-done. John wasn’t sure how Sherlock’s massive intellect failed to notice there was a correlation between case work and being nice to the Yarders, but really, John could hear in his mind, “That’s what you’re here for, John,” in Sherlock’s deep drawling voice. He shivered and the actual Sherlock said, with eyebrows scrunched, “Are you cold, John?”

The pub was comfortably warm, so John shook his head. “It’s nothing.”

Sherlock looked unconvinced as he sipped his wine, then he rolled the stem in his fingers. “The sooner you talk to them the sooner we can leave, so go.”

Sherlock waved John off causing John to scowl. “Can I not enjoy my first beer with you?”

Sherlock’s eyes widened as a slight look of disgust on his features. “First?”

John proceeded to chug his beer as Sherlock watched in horror, and the accompanying burp dropped Sherlock’s jaw, causing a giggle to escape from John’s mouth. He caught the bartender’s eye, signaled another beer, and then walked off without a word, cold beer in hand, to a nearby table filled with their colleagues. Someone clapped him on the back while he rubbed his chest, warming it after drinking the last beer too fast: probably shouldn’t do that again, so he sipped and listened, and generally had a good time.

Sherlock nursed his glass of wine for a long while before he was finally drawn to John’s side. John automatically sidestepped to allow Sherlock room. “Want another glass?” John said during a lull in the conversation.

Sherlock shook his head no and shifted a little, crowding John against the table. The conversation shifted with the addition of the genius, so John watched as he wowed the new Yarders (“Did I ever look that young?” John mused, smiling into his beer). Sherlock was gesturing with his hands, voice deepening as he warmed to his topic, and John closed his eyes for a moment to enjoy the closeness, the gentle brushes of their bodies as Sherlock explained.

He was brought back to reality when he felt Sherlock’s hand on the small of his back and felt Sherlock’s voice rumble against his spine. “Should we head out?”

John opened his eyes and found the Yarders staring at them, and John couldn’t remember anything beyond the feel of Sherlock’s body so close to his own, so he murmured assent and they left. As they walked back to the flat, John grabbed Sherlock’s hand, entwining their fingers. Sherlock hummed and squeezed.

And from that night on it was easier to get Sherlock to interact with other people. John wasn’t naïve enough to believe Sherlock suddenly cared about other people, but he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. They would start the night together, John would go off alone for a bit, and then Sherlock would join in and dazzle everyone at the table, causing John to relax and agree to go home soon after.

After several encounters like this, John was surprised to find himself solo one night because Sherlock needed to check on an experiment at the flat. “Maybe I should come with you?” John said to Sherlock.

But Sherlock waved his words away with an expansive sweep of his arm. “It’s not something you can help me with and I know you like to talk to them,” he wiggled his fingers, “after a case, so go. I will come if you haven’t returned when I’m done.” And Sherlock had swept away, his great coat swirling around his slim form. John had felt his heart squeeze when Sherlock hadn’t looked back as he hurried away.

And now he sat in the pub, a tasteless beer in one hand as he people watched. The Yarders were a bit more exuberant, and for a moment John thought, “Maybe because Sherlock’s not here,” then dismissed the thought.

After the Fall and the subsequent vindication, all of Sherlock’s old colleagues kept a wary but respectful distance from the genius, and all the new colleagues developed a bit of hero worship: the Great Sherlock Holmes, deigning to converse with them, as if he were just a mere human. It was a sharp contrast to the early days when all Sherlock was met with was distain and mockery. Sherlock before had been an android; Sherlock after was mostly human.

“Come here often?” a voice on his left said. It was a small woman, wearing a blouse and skirt (work clothes), tipping forward a little in her high heels as she looked at John with dilated pupils. No wedding ring, the top buttons open to expose her cleavage (nice), her hand brushing her neck so his eyes would be drawn to the lovely image (John was a visual creature). His gaze flickered to her face: her lips were parted and her tongue darted out, wetting her bottom lip. John squirmed, feeling exposed despite not having said anything.

“No,” he replied, looking away and sipping his beer.

She stepped closer, into his personal space, and said, “Waiting for someone?”

John shook his head no, because he wasn’t waiting for Sherlock to finish his experiment and come meet him here. Nope, he wasn’t moping and generally ignoring the Yarders as he thought about his best friend looking through his slides and dissecting human livers or whatever he was working on at this time. John put his beer down on the bar with a loud click and turned away from it, pulling his oatmeal jumper down as he hopped off his stool.

The woman took this moment to place her hand on his arm and he looks down at her fingers lightly wrapped around his bicep. “Would you like to go somewhere more private?” she says, squeezing his muscle and gasping a little at the contact.

John stiffened as all his muscles became aware of the woman’s proximity. He opened his mouth to reply when he felt the atmosphere in the room change, silence descending in a wave as someone swept through the room: an astute observer would notice that as the man passed, everyone in his path seemed to sag, as if he’d taken a little bit of their energy, and then he stood at John’s shoulder, a bomb waiting to go off, lips on his temple with a soft hello.

Everything coalesced into one single thought: Sherlock was jealous. His mind ran through all the other times Sherlock had crowded him in a pub and realized it was when someone made an attempt at something more than casual acquaintances. How Sherlock could read from his various positions that a conversation had turned more intimate was beyond John’s comprehension, especially because he was pretty sure none of the Yarders were interested in getting between them, because really: Sherlock may be mostly human now but he was still a drama queen, and an agitated Sherlock could reduce the nicest person to tears in a minute. Then again, a detective is a detective is a detective, so he wouldn’t bet against any of the officers using Sherlock’s jealousy to draw the gaunt man into a conversation just to wind him up.

“Sorry, I’m late,” Sherlock said, placing a hand on John’s waist and looking at the woman as he whispered in John’s ear.

John shivered. “Finished the experiment?”

Sherlock just hummed, meaning he hadn’t finished it. Had there even been an experiment? Or had Sherlock just followed him and waited to swoop in at the perfect moment? Sherlock chuckled and John felt it with his entire body, the warmth of the sound pooling in his stomach. “Who’s your friend?”

John blinked and remembered the woman standing in front of him; not sure how she escaped his mind because she was literally right here, her hand still clutching his arm. He shifted, pulling his arm from her grasp and said, “I don’t know: we were just being friendly.”

The woman appeared to have forgotten all about John because her gaze was now on the taller man, her hand frozen in mid-clasp. “Sherlock Holmes?” she said, her voice squeaking.

John sighed. _He was an end to a means_ , he thought. He shook his head, grabbed his discarded beer, and took a swallow. “Want anything?” he said to Sherlock.

Sherlock just stared at John, his face neutral. John enjoyed the moment as he watched Sherlock try to work out where things had gone upside down, and when he couldn’t pinpoint it, his eyes narrowed. His gaze strayed to the woman who had by now retrieved her hand and was staring up at Sherlock, her eyes wide and glassy. Sherlock jerked back as if her eyes were physically touching him, and John chuckled, thinking, _He leaves a bag of eyes in the fridge but can’t stomach a woman ogling him._ The look of revulsion on Sherlock’s face made him cackle.

“I fail to see what’s so funny, John,” he said, giving John a once over.

John snorted into his lukewarm beer. “This one is for you,” he muttered, then he turned away, discarding his beer on the bar, and left.

Having a confused Sherlock trailing your every step was like have a lost puppy following you home: John kept tripping over his own reaction. They didn’t speak when they left the pub, or on the way home, or even at home except to talk to Rosie before John hauled her off to bed. Then John lay in his bed and he couldn’t put off the internal discussion.

He was bitter. Was it the woman? She clearly knew who they were, though she pretended not to know. Then again, they hadn’t gotten far into the conversation before Sherlock showed up, so maybe she would have admitted knowing who he was later. Was the pick-up line just an angle to get closer to Sherlock? Yes, yes it could have been, and John was annoyed; he’d never had that happen to him before. Admittedly, Sherlock hadn’t been as famous before the Fall, and when he returned John was—practically—engaged, so this situation wouldn’t have come up. Why would this bother him? It’s not like he hadn’t made friends with a woman before so he could get closer to her friend. This had never happened to him though.

And it’s not like Sherlock was interested in any way beyond asserting his dominance over a possible—not likely---rival. But something about the woman’s obvious interest in Sherlock rubbed John the wrong way. Was he jealous? Maybe, though he had no reason to be. Once Sherlock set his sights on something, there was no dissuading him, and this thing building between them was fragile and magnificent.

There was a soft knock on the door. John sighed, checked on Rosie, and then followed Sherlock downstairs to the living room. Sherlock perched on one side of the couch while John got comfortable on the other. John waited.

“Did I do something?” Sherlock said after the silence became deafening.

John sighed again and leaned forward. “Was there an experiment you needed to look after tonight?”

Sherlock looked at him in shock. “Of course there was.” He clenched his jaw and muttered, “I have to start again since I never—”

“Why didn’t you just finish it and come by later? Did you not trust me?”

Now Sherlock was distressed, his hands fidgeting with his dress robe. “Of course I trust you; why wouldn’t I?”

“Eurus.”

Sherlock jumped up and began pacing. “That was different, and you were with Mary.”

“I dated many women before Mary while I was living here with you.”

Sherlock swept the words away. “No, still different; we weren’t together then.”

“Are we now?” John said softly.

Sherlock’s face went slack and he flopped on the couch right next to John. “Aren’t we?” he asked.

John interlaced their fingers. “Yes, we are. I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” John admitted as Sherlock studied their clasped hands.

“I don’t either,” Sherlock said. He released John’s fingers and flopped down onto John’s lap, his arms covering his face. “I almost made it home, but then turned around and ran to the pub. I saw that woman touch you and I wanted to rip her arm off.”

John exhaled sharply as he pulled his fingers through Sherlock’s curls. “Bit not good, that.”

Sherlock snorted. “Why? Because she’s a woman? I would have felt the same if it had been a man touching you, coming on to you.”

“Sherlock, you can’t fault people for trying to get to know me.”

“I can if they intend to sleep with you.”

John shook his head. “It never would have gotten that far.”

Sherlock crossed his arms and refused to look at John’s face. “I know that.”

John used both hands to massage Sherlock’s scalp. “Me too.”

Sherlock turned his face into John’s belly. “I don’t understand.”

John sighed and removed his hands from Sherlock’s hair, placing them on the back of the couch. “When you came in I was in the process of leaving. Then you swooped in and became all possessive—which I liked, by the way,” John said.

“If you liked it then why are we having this conversation?”

“Because I didn’t like what came after. I’ve never been used like that and it was a bit, disconcerting.”

Sherlock looked confused.

“The woman knew who you were, so she had to have known who I was, and when you showed up, she only had eyes for you.”

When the silence stretched too long, Sherlock said, “And that’s bad why?”

“Objectively, it’s not,” John said while gesturing wildly. “But it still bothered me.”

“How do we fix this?”

John shrugged. “We can’t; it’s who we are.”

Sherlock sat up and looked John straight in the eyes. “Are we having a fight?”

John shook his head. “No, just feeling out the boundaries. I think this all could have been avoided if I had just come home after the case.”

“But you like talking to Lestrade or Dimmock after a case.”

John pulled Sherlock into an embrace. “But I like it better when you’re there,” he replied, kissing Sherlock’s nose.

Sherlock leaned back a little without breaking the embrace. “I didn’t like you being there without me.”

John nodded. “Which is why your experiment went to shit.”

Sherlock turned in John’s embrace and leaned back, propping his feet up on the opposite armrest. The baby monitor lights flashed as Rosie mumbled in her sleep. They sat there for a while, neither talking as they listened to Rosie sleep, John enjoying Sherlock’s weight as it pressed him against the couch.

John was almost asleep when Sherlock turned, his face to the sofa back and John’s belly, curling up around the bits of John he could reach. “Hey, we should head to bed,” he said, running his fingers along Sherlock’s neck.

Sherlock stretched and purred, then burrowed his head into John’s lap.

“C’mon,” John said, gently pushing Sherlock upright. When Sherlock didn’t get to his feet, John grabbed his hand and tugged until Sherlock followed him to his room. Surprisingly, the floor was clear of the usual detritus found in Sherlock’s room, so it only took a moment to tuck the taller man into bed. John pressed a kiss to his forehead and murmured, “Goodnight, Sherlock.”

Before John could stand up, Sherlock grabbed his wrist, his fingers on John’s pulse. “Stay.”

John smiled. “Okay.” He pulled his wrist from Sherlock and left the room. He grabbed Rosie’s monitor, turned off the lights, and crawled into bed with Sherlock, automatically putting his body between Sherlock and the door. Sherlock turned and flung his arm around John, snuggling close until their bodies were pressed into a single line from head to toe. John wrapped his arm around Sherlock and fell asleep, Sherlock’s breath warm on his chest.

 

Later, on a different day after a different case, they are standing in front of NSY, and Sherlock says, “I have to check on an experiment.”

John smiles up at him and hooks his arm with Sherlock’s. “Pub after?” he says.

“Maybe,” Sherlock replies, his mouth twitching.

But John can smile enough for the both of them, so he continues to grin, happy in this moment.

 

 

 


End file.
